Jennifer in Toronto

My move started with the movers showing up 2 hours late, with no apology or explanation. I had previously called customer service, and received no assistance in finding out when they would show up. The movers did not have masks, and were not fully vaccinated. I had to give them disposable masks, which they wore incorrectly (below their noses) for a couple of hours, before removing them entirely. I get that it was a hot day, but my apartment was small and didn't allow for distancing. They started out by deciding to remove boxes first, which was fine, but instead of just taking them all out, they would only take boxes of a certain size and type, before moving on to the next size and type of box. This resulted in them repeatedly moving boxes around to get at different boxes. It should have taken them an hour max to remove all of the boxes (there were 3 movers), but it took over 3 hours. Then they started to remove the furniture, but it was the same problem. They decided the furniture had to be removed in a specific order, and until each piece of furniture was removed, nothing else was being done. On top of that, the guy who was taking the furniture apart didn't know what he was doing, and refused to accept help from me. I had the assembly instructions for the furniture, and had experience taking it apart (I have a bad back which is why I left it for the movers to do), but when I tried to help I was dismissed, because he was "the expert". At one point, he spent 15 minutes removing one screw from the sofa, during which time the two other movers were doing nothing, because they decided the sofa had to go next. You may be wondering why I didn't say anything. Their behaviour was unprofessional - they were arguing with each other and swearing constantly. I am a single woman, and was intimidated. I also felt trapped, because it was the end of the month and I needed to be out that day, and knew I wouldn't be able to find anyone else in the middle of the afternoon to get me out that day. So I tried not to irritate them, in the hopes they would get it done. Back to the sofa... After an hour, where no other work was being done (one guy was wandering aimlessly around the whole time), the guy decided he couldn't get the sofa apart (it was an Ikea sofa) and he couldn't get it out of the house, so it was going to be left behind. The movers went on another one of their copious paid breaks (they took many over the course of the day), and while they were gone I spent all of 3 minutes looking at the assembly instructions and taking the sofa apart so it could be removed. I had previously tried to help and been told to let the professional do it. One wasted $170 hour later... At one point, they were stuck trying to get a large item out of the door for 15 minutes (by stuck, I mean standing there swearing and arguing), before I suggested they remove the door, and then I got chewed out for not telling them to do it sooner. I'm pretty sure professional movers know they may occasionally need to remove a door. It shouldn't have been up to me to tell them how to do their job. It ended up taking them 7.5 hours just to load the truck. For comparison, when I moved into the apartment (with more stuff), I had only two movers helping me, and I was moving from far away, and the total move took 8 hours. At the end, we ended up leaving a couple of lawn chairs behind, because even though they were using a bigger truck than my previous move, they didn't know how to pack it and couldn't fit them in. They had also completely filled my minivan. It then took them 2 hours to drive to my new place. I drove the same route, went through the McDonalds drive through, stopped at a friend's house to pick up my daughter, and still arrived half an hour before they did. It took them a further 3 hours (with more breaks) to unload the truck. They did not reassemble any of my furniture, and they left most of the boxes in the entry way. A move that I though was going to take about 7 hours total (I've moved lots and based that on my experience with other actual professional moving companies) ended up taking 12.5 hours, and wasn't even completed. Unfortunately, I didn't realize at the time that the contract I signed violated Ontario Consumer Protection laws because it didn't include a total price for the move, only the hourly rate. My mistake was assuming that I was hiring a company that knew what they were doing and would complete the move in a timely fashion, instead of dragging it out in order to gouge me for an extra thousand dollars. I have tried contacting the company to resolve the issue, but after offering me a low ball amount, they have been incommunicado, and have not been returning my emails and calls to speak with a manager always get sent to voicemail. I highly recommend not hiring this company. Don't trust the Homestars award - you can see from the other negative reviews I am not the only one who has been screwed over, and then received no assistance when I tried to get the company to make it right.